Kandice Cooper, CSC Docket No. 2025-441
NJ Civil Service Commission decision of December 17, 2025, CSC Docket No. 2025-441: working test period, penalty upheld. Kandice Cooper, Quality Assurance Coordinator, Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, Department of Health, return to previously held permanent title at the end of the working test period,
Commission decisions · Meeting of December 17, 2025
Kandice Cooper, Quality Assurance Coordinator, Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, Department of Health, return to previously held permanent title at the end of the working test period, effective July 30, 2024.
- Matter
- Working test period
- Decided
- December 17, 2025, item A-2
- Outcome
- Penalty upheld
- ALJ's recommendation
- Uphold the return to the previously held permanent title at the end of the working test period.
- What the Commission did with it
- Adopted the ALJ's recommendation
- Chair at the time
- Allison Chris Myers, Acting Chairperson
- Official decision
- CSC's PDF
Action recorded in the minutes: The Civil Service Commission affirmed the recommendation of the Administrative Law Judge.
Rules this decision applies
The decision
CSC published this decision as a scanned image. The text below was recognized by OCR, read twice and checked against the meeting minutes, but OCR can misread a word. The official document is the record.
BackgroundThe appeal of Kandice Cooper, a former Quality Assurance Coordinator with Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, Department of Health, of her return to her previously held permanent title of Supervising Rehabilitation Counselor Mental Health at the end of the working test period, effective July 30, 2024, was heard by Administrative Law Judge Advia Knight Foster (ALJ), who rendered her initial decision on November 14, 2025. Exceptions were filed by the appellant and a reply was filed on behalf of the appointing authority.
AnalysisHaving considered the record and the ALJ’s initial decision, and having made an independent evaluation of the record, including a thorough review of the exceptions, which do not require extensive comment, the Civil Service Commission (Commission), at its meeting on December 17, 2025, accepted and adopted the ALJ’s Findings of Facts and Conclusions and her recommendation to uphold the return to the appellant’s previously held permanent title at the end of the working test period.
The Commission makes the following comments. The ALJ’s initial decision was thorough, comprehensive, and legally correct. In this regard, the Commission agrees that the appellant has not sustained her burden of proof to establish that the appointing authority did not conduct her working test period in good faith. See N.J.A.C. 4A:2-4.3. Further, as noted by the appointing authority, N.J.A.C. 1:2-18.4(c) states that “[e]vidence not presented at the hearing shall not be submitted as part of an exception, nor shall it be incorporated or referred to within exceptions.” In as much as the appointing authority indicates that the supporting evidence submitted by the appellant in her exceptions was in violation of this regulation, the exceptions filed by the appellant are unpersuasive in that the ALJ’s determination was based on the credible evidence in the record demonstrating that the appellant’s working test period was not implemented in bad faith. Accordingly, the action of the appointing authority is upheld.
ORDER
The Commission finds that the action of the appointing authority in returning the appellant to her previously held permanent title at the end of the working test period was justified. The Commission therefore affirms that action and dismisses the appeal of Kandice Cooper.
ClosingThis is the final administrative determination in this matter. Any further review should be pursued in a judicial forum.
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